ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 1709 http://www.s-gabriel.org/1709 ************************************ 24 Apr 1999 From: (Josh Mittleman) Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether is an appropriate name for a 12th century Irishwoman. This letter is a brief answer to your question. The name is mostly correct. We have one suggestion for improving it. is a fine Gaelic feminine name for your period [1]. It is pronounced somewhere between \MOOR-en\ and \MOOR-yen\, where the \OO\ is pronounced as in . This name is not related to , a modern English phonetic spelling of , which is the Gaelic form of [2]. The slash in that name indicates an accent on the preceding letter. "fast-horse" is a descriptive nickname recorded in an early-medieval Irish genealogy. It was used by a man, but it could perhaps also have been used by a woman [1]. It was pronounced \EKH-loo-@\, where \KH\ represents the raspy sound in the Scottish word or German . is the late-medieval spelling of the Gaelic word for "daughter". In the 12th century, it was spelled and pronounced \EEN-yen\. is the genitive (possessive) form of the common early-medieval Gaelic masculine name [4]. In other words, means "Artt's". This is the correct form to use in your name, since you are Artt's daughter. is pronounced similar to the English word . is not the same name as , which was not a Gaelic name. is a fine 12th century Irish woman's name [5]. We hope this brief letter has been useful. I was assisted in preparing it by Talan Gwynek, Walraven van Nijmegen, and Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn. Please write us again if you have any questions. For the Academy, Arval Benicoeur 24 Apr 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - References [1] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "Feminine Names from the Index to O'Brien's 'Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae'" (WWW, Academy of Saint Gabriel, 1996). http://www.us.itd.umich.edu/~ximenez/s.gabriel/docs/irish-obrien.html [2] O/ Corra/in, Donnchadh and Fidelma Maguire, _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990), s.n. Ma/ire. [3] The 12th century was a transitional period for Gaelic pronunciation. Some dialects may have preserved the older pronunciation of which is \EKH-loo-@th\. [4] Jones, Heather Rose (aka Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn), "100 Most Popular Men's Names in Early Medieval Ireland" (WWW: J. Mittleman, 1998). http://www.panix.com/~mittle/names/tangwystyl/irish100 [5] While descriptive bynames are apparently relatively rare in this period, all the examples in our source that include descriptive bynames also include patronymics. O'Brien, M. A., ed., _Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae_ (Dublin: The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976).